Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Photographs
Swiss banking large UBS on Tuesday posted $770 million in fourth-quarter web revenue, launching a $1 billion share buyback program within the first half of 2025.
The web revenue determine compares with a imply forecast of $886.4 million in a LSEG ballot of analysts and with a $483 million estimate in a company-provided consensus estimate.
Group income over the interval hit $11.635 billion, versus analyst expectations of $11.64 billion in a LSEG analyst ballot.
The financial institution additionally introduced plans to repurchase $1 billion of shares within the first half of 2025, together with as much as a further $2 billion over the second half of this 12 months.
Different fourth-quarter highlights included:
- Return on tangible fairness hit 3.9%, in contrast with 7.3% over the third quarter.
- CET 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial institution solvency, was 14.3%, unchanged from the third quarter.
Funding banking shone over the fourth quarter, with underlying revenues up 37% year-on-year amid “sturdy progress” in world banking and world markets efficiency. The group’s world wealth administration division logged a ten% hike in revenues over the fourth-quarter stretch, “largely pushed by larger recurring web price earnings, a lower in unfavorable different earnings and better transaction-based earnings.”
After weathering the storm of a turbulent government-backed tie-up with fallen home rival Credit score Suisse in 2023, UBS mentioned it was on monitor with its 2024 integration milestones and delivered a further $700 million in gross price financial savings within the fourth quarter. The group had hoped to realize $7.5 billion out of a complete of $13 billion in price financial savings by the tip of final 12 months, with CEO Sergio Ermotti signaling in a Bloomberg interview final month that redundancies have been “inevitable” as a part of the method — even because the group goals to depend on voluntary departures.
UBS on Tuesday mentioned it plans to realize one other $2.5 billion of gross price saving this 12 months.
The Swiss belt tightening provides to an image of broader expense self-discipline and restructuring throughout Europe’s banking sectors, as lenders exit a interval of excessive rates of interest and claw profitability to maintain tempo with U.S. friends. On Monday, fellow Swiss financial institution Julius Baer revealed an further goal of 110 million of Swiss francs ($120 million) in gross financial savings, whereas HSBC final week mentioned it’s getting ready to wind down its M&A and fairness capital markets operations in Europe, the U.Okay. and the U.S.
Armed with a stability sheet that topped $1.7 trillion in 2023 — roughly double Switzerland’s anticipated financial output final 12 months — UBS has been battling vocal issues at residence that its scale has breached the Swiss authorities’s consolation, depriving the lender of friends that may take up it and dealing with Bern with a steep nationalization price ticket, within the occasion of its failure.
The Swiss financial system has already been backed right into a fragile nook by depressed annual inflation — of simply 0.6% in December — and a punitively sturdy Swiss franc, which solely gained additional floor on Monday as the worldwide tumult ensuing from U.S. tariffs pushed jittery buyers towards the safe-haven asset.
